I know it was. What I'm saying is that if you can distance yourself from that external knowledge and focus right into Empire, its a pretty great story just standalone -- maybe even better with the ambiguity to begin with and with the ending.
Lets go microscopic: Empire attacks rebels, rebels respond with some running from the law and one training to be a warrior to topple the empire. What happens? The lead rogue gets imprisoned for his troubles and the warrior-in-training learns he is more intertwined with his enemy than he could have imagined and literally loses a piece of himself. The last shot is the remains of the group plotting their next move.
Sure, that seems more like end of Act 2 stuff. "Well how to they respond?" You may ask. Personally I think the last shot says it -- whatever you may want to project onto it. Maybe they're looking into outer space and plotting their next attack, maybe they're staring defeated into the void. Imagine Star Wars was as avant garde as A New Hope and Empire (and THX) presented and just ended on that last frame of Empire. The ending works! Yes it is more ambiguous, but if everything started and stopped at Empire I'm sure today there would be people that knew who came out a victor, even if the movie didn't explicitly say. If you were an optimist, going to Jabba's and blowing up the death star again was a formality.
(The only hard to explain thing if you single out Empire is the Kenobi ghost, hahah)
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"Jihad is the soul of EMF"--Lena
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